http://www.bootdisk.com/ 269 June 2006

The BootLIST

Welcome to the 269th Edition of The BootLIST

INDEX
1) Memory Configurator
2) System Restore Not Working
3) Upgrade XP Home To Pro
4) SATA Drives Noticeably Faster?
5) Don't Lose Your Favicons - MORE


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1) Memory Configurator

Ian inquired - I have 512 Megs of Ram on a single stick. I want 1 gig of Ram at least. Do I buy a 512 or a 1 gig module from a retail store to add to my system so I will have at least 1 gig or 1.5 gig? If I wanted to settle on 1 gig I heard that it is best to have a single stick to minimize any compatibility problem.


*** Good question. There are so many types of ram out now and you are taking a chance driving to a store and buying what's on the shelf as you dont really know if it will be compatible or not. I suggest buying from a professional memory supplier that "knows" what brands and upgrades are best for your specific motherboard.

For example, tho my sons pc docs said his mobo can take 1 gig modules both Crucial and 18004memory.com suggested 512 stick upgrades to get the total he needed. I took Crucial's advice and bought 2, 512 meg cards, put them in the 2nd and 3rd slots and it worked perfectly. Now he has 1.5 gig of Ram.

Memory Configurator:
http://www.bootdisk.com/ram.htm


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2) System Restore Not Working

Donald wrote - I've tried to restore my system and when I click on this I get a message:

"System Restore is not able to protect your computer. Please restart your computer, and then run System Restore again."

So I've restarted and tried again and I still get the same message.

Ron M. replied:
See MVP Bert Kinney's System Restore pages:
http://bertk.mvps.org/index.html

ssengupta answered:

System Restore "restore points" are missing or deleted:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=301224

How to troubleshoot the System Restore tool in Windows XP:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=302796


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3) Upgrade XP Home To Pro

JohnSmith1 asked - When I want to upgrade from home to pro. It comes with a message "current OS is newer than you are trying to install" and does not upgrade. What I can do apart from formatting everything and installing XP Pro.

Ken B. said:
You have SP2 installed, and your XP Professional Upgrade is without it, so it is an older version than what's installed. You have two choices:

1. Uninstall SP2, do the upgrade, then reinstall SP2.
2. Create a slipstreamed version of XP Professional, including SP2, and use it. See:

http://forum.aumha.org/viewtopic.php?t=7262
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/slipstream.htm

I recommend the second choice.

Bruce C. said:

This means that your installed OS is at a higher service pack level than is the WinXP Pro CD you're using. You'll either need to uninstall SP2 before attempting the upgrade, or try slipstreaming SP2 into the upgrade.

For slipstreaming the service pack and subsequent updates to WinXP. How to integrate software updates into your Windows installation source files:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=828930


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4) SATA Drives Noticeably Faster?

Dennis posted - I have a WinXP system running on a 250gig ATA 100 drive. I got a new SATA II 250gig drive today. I need more storage. I'm trying to decide if I should reinstall WinXP onto the SATA drive and start from scratch (a lot of work). or just throw the SATA drive in the comp and leave XP running on the ATA.

But how much faster is it? 5%? or like 50%? Is it worth the effort reinstalling XP? Can anyone give me a some facts or point me to some straight forward links as to how much of a speed difference I would see?


*** Easy answer. You wont see much of a difference so it's NOT really worth the effort.

Dennis posts back:
I ended up switching XP to the SATA drive and starting fresh. As expected there is very little improvement that is "noticeable". Even in benchmarks, of which I've run several kinds. The main improvement is in 'burst speed' which averages around 80mb/sec on my ATA 100 drive. On my new SATA II drive it is around 130mb/sec. Also the ATA drive has a seek time of approx 15ms and on the SATA II drive is about 13ms.

As for the kind of info I was looking for, after I was done and it was too late I found that Tom's Hardware has a new hard drive comparison tool that is very very useful:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage.html


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5) Don't Lose Your Favicons - MORE

Jim emailed - Dear Ed. For a fix to #6 [Don't Lose Your Favicons] in Bootlist #268 June 2006 try:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Bookmark-Managers/favorg.shtml

I've been using FavOrg for years. It's the goods for Fav icon saving. It was on a PC Mag CD I got for subscribing. They now want you to pay for what used to be free downloads, but the link above is free.


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